Fallout: Ash and Dirt - The Return.

So, the last chapters of An Elder Scrolls Saga: A Dagger in the Wind has been written. All that remains now is to edit them, and to spot errors/typos.

When it is done I will be shifting my focus back to my fallout fanfic, which has been sorely neglected. With that said, I started to continue writing the chapter I had left off on, and immediately started calling LeBethany, Valerie from AESS.

So what I decided to do was to star re-reading AaD, to try and get a feel for it again. What I found was errors and typos and mis-constructed sentences.

So once I have finished editing DitW, I will re-do AaD part 1 (I must really learn to plan stories that aren't serials)

Another thing I decided to do, was to remake the cover. It's just plain too dark, and you can barely see the thing. I also thought it was too 'busy'

OLD

NEW

The old version doesn't exist as a big image anymore, but I could easily remake it if need be. In the end though it was hard to see.

JG

Making Covers, and Building Characters

So I've said a good amount of times, that I like to make covers for my stories. Well, I make them by doing a kind of panorama, and joining the images together, to get a larger image. The console helps heaps in this. Simple "TFC 1" to pause all the action and then use "FOV 10" to reduce the field of view. This reduces the amount of warpage that occurs around the edges of the screen, making it easier to make the panorama. I then take a series of shots. Working on larger images helps, as I like to round out the polygonal edges with a warp tool in Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8. Yes, you read correctly. I use software released in 2003 (Jasc PSP being Coral PSP in 2005 onwards) and it works well with windows 7.
Anyhoo, the panorama goes from top to bottom, creating a rectangular image on the vertical.

This is the image after it has been put together from the series of screenshots, scrolling down. And then after it's all been messed around with in PSP. If I did this today, I would have taken 2 shots of  Mag. One with the Hide armour, and one with the master mages outfit, and then merge them to create something unique looking, as I did with M, on an image I posted earlier.

I also redid the Valerie and Tam images as I wasn't happy with the way they looked. Another thing I did was start making more characters, as I thought it might help me when describing them. (May go back and add more description on characters when I go back to repair part 1 of it's typos and such.)

Anyway, I thought it might be good to show some characters from part 2.

 

Sorry, no Darovin as I didn't make him. Just imagine Brendarr, but with black hair, older and with five-o'clock shadow. (Getting a Dunmer to look young is actually quite hard without him looking like a high-fantasy elf or something) (Might see if I can fix the way he looks later)
EDIT
Changed Brendarr's normal map to make him look closer to his age.

Rasha's appearance is kind of an accident. I wasn't happy with how the Ohmes Raht race, from a mod on the nexus, was simply a re-textured Bosmer. I threw the Race Morph Tri into blender, and made some changes. I was worried that it would cause problems, but in the end it turned out quite well. I kind of gave her a slight muzzle, and made the morphs eyes narrower on the horizontal plane. the eyes themselves use the Khajiit eye texture from cover eyes, just altered so they fit on the non-beast race eye texture.

Faldan on the other hand was easy. I used some hair mod (Apachii Skyhair maybe) and tried to make him look a bit dorky. He's around 35.

That's all for now

JG

I mod also, well not any more I don't

I made a Race mod for Skyrim a while ago, and while I tried hard on it, I can't get the thing to fully work.
The problem is that the Formlists don't exactly function as I think they're supposed to

Example:
If you add a race to HeadsPartsAllracesMinusBeast formlist, then everything works. But if any other mod uses that same formlist, even in reference, then things begin to break.
Also the Vampire and Werewolf change scripts begin to act up with multiple race mods.

I've tried using the "Generic Race Controller" scripts from the mod "Creating Playable Races the Right Way" and I tried following the instructions, but all I get is script failures and issues. I might have start fresh, but that ain't happening. So for now, the half working mod will stay.

I tried something I haven't really tried before. Creating a mod. In the end it's a partial success, partial failure.
The success was creating morphs that are different from vanilla. Learning texturing and how to alter texture-maps. Being able to create custom spells for the races.
The failures are simple. Creating a race in Skyrim is broken. You need other mods to get a race mod to be properly functional with other race mods. Otherwise, you have end up with the possibility of a bald race, and/or a race that bugs out when becoming a vampire/werewolf etc.

Anyone interested in taking a look, it's here.
The Dwemer and the Falmer
I also did an elven eyes mod. Might expand that a little more.

JG

An Elder Scrolls Saga: Part 2 - The Final Stretch

Part 2 of my Elder Scrolls Fan Fiction is almost complete. Already I can tell that some aspect of the story are not going to feel complete as I thought they would feel, and an upcoming battle (this was posted after chapter  15 had been posted/before 16) may feel as though a last minute thought, when it has been planned for a long time. I just didn't allude to it as I wanted it to feel sudden, and out of the blue.

After this is complete, I will begin to take another look at my Fallout FF, and also fix errors and typos in ESSaga P1, that really need to be corrected. I was reading through it the other day, and was amazed at how glaring some errors were. Extra words, using the wrong words etc. It'll be fixed as well as me getting back into the Fallout universe.

That's all for now
JG.